Men on a jury more likely to convict an obese woman, psychology study finds

Overweight women more likely to be convicted by male jury, study finds

According to a new study from Yale University, overweight women who find themselves in front of a jury in the U.S. face longer odds at getting a fair trial than skinny or obese men, or women with lower BMIs.

In an examination of 471 participants of various body types, men and women were asked to assess the potential guilt of hypothetical offenders, of both genders, who were either skinny, overweight or obese.

The simulated jurors were given a description of a case of cheque fraud and shown one of four images of an alleged defendant who was either a skinny man, obese man, skinny woman or an obese woman. They were told to rate the likelihood of guilt on a scale of one to five.

In their analysis, they found men were significantly more likely to believe the obese female defendant was guilty of check fraud. Men were also more likely to assume she would be a repeat offender with ‘awareness’ of the crime she committed.

Even more surprising, the study found lean male participants were more likely to find the obese female defendant guilty than those of other body types.

By contrast, female participants were shown to have little to no weight bias towards any of the ‘defendants’, and there was no fat-bias by any gender when assessing male defendants.